By all accounts, our 6.5m x 5.5m interactive model of Cardiff stole the show at Olympia during London’s inaugural MIPIM global property conference last week. Our team set it up on Tuesday for the 3 day event and then dismantled it on Friday evening, bringing it back to Cardiff (in two vans) where it is shortly going to set up in a permanent marketing suite. Once the model is in its new home it will be used to promote the city of Cardiff to national and international investors. It is a fully interactive model controlled via a large touchscreen which activates over 30 different lighting zones on the model and at the same time displays relevant information pages on the touchscreen. The screen images will also be projected onto a giant screen so that the information is visible to all.

After being centre of attention at the football Stadium event, our Cardiff City model is now on temporary display within the County Hall offices in Cardiff Bay. As you can see from the images it’s a much more low-key venue but we’re told it does get a regular stream of visitors, from politicians and potential inward investors right through to police officers from other cities who use the model to help with crowd control planning for visiting football supporters (sadly not from premiership teams this year!). It’s going to be in County Hall for a few more weeks before moving to its permanent venue in the new Library (opposite John Lewis) where it will be open to the general public. Since the stadium event we’ve added a few tweaks and improvements to the model itself and to the interactive element including a new “All lights on” button which lights up all 36 of the model’s lighting zones at the same time.

Here’s a first glimpse of the massive project we’ve been working on for the last 5 months, a 6.5 x 5.5 metre interactive model of Cardiff. We set it up for the first time yesterday at a major launch in the Cardiff City football stadium where it was the centre of attention for over 200 specially invited guests. The model has been designed for use in a permanent marketing suite to promote the city of Cardiff to national and international investors. It is a fully interactive model controlled via a large touchscreen which activates over 30 different lighting zones on the model and at the same time displays relevant information pages on the screen. The touchscreen images are also projected onto a large screen above the model so that the information is visible to all. More information to follow soon.

This large model was commissioned as a marketing tool for a prestigious development of high quality apartments at Gloucestershire County Cricket Ground in Bristol. At 1:100 scale the model was almost 2 metres long and certainly made an eye catching centrepiece for the their marketing suite. The model also features internal illumination and external fibre optic uplighters to give it even more impact. This is actually the second model we have made of this development as we actually produced a smaller scale white model last year to help secure planning permission for the project (link below).

CLNR stands for Customer Led Network Revolution, a method of optimizing the power supply network based on immediate reaction to varying customer demands. The purpose of this model was to illustrate Northern Powergrid’s strategies for maximizing the efficiency of their supplies to both domestic and commercial users. The model looks deceptively simple but actually features some complex programming to demonstrate how the network adjusts to the demands of different users at different times of the day, including storing surplus power for later use. The button panel allows the user to set up varying power requirements which are indicated by lights on the model (turning red) and then press further buttons that illustrate how the demands are resolved (turning the lights green) with energy efficient systems and procedures.